I Can Explain!
by Ryl
Summary: Vinnie comes clean. Sort of.


Originally posted November 3, 2011.

Warning: Contains swearing

Thanks to Stayce for editing and encouraging! You're the best, Babe.

**I Can Explain!**

It wasn't my fault! Honest! Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that's my imbecile cousin Stephanie's line. And it is. But that doesn't mean it isn't true. Because it's _not_ my fault. Those file clerks who quit? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Totally not my fault. At least, not mostly...

Connie's been blabbing on about that "hide the salami" incident, but I gotta tell you, that's not how it happened. I really _did_ need her to hide the salami! Wait. That didn't come out right...

It started when Lucille got mad and refused to make me my lunch. She said something about a petting zoo and the Internet, but I didn't quite catch the drift of it. Maybe I zoned out a little. Anyway, the upshot was that she decided I could make my own lunch. Well, fine. Yeah. I can do that.

I can't do that.

Lucille came to her senses right about the time I dumped all her Tupperware on the floor looking for the right size container to dump a tin of Chef-Boy-R-Dee in. I have a microwave at work, repossessed from a vehicular assault guy. So, I'm thinking, lunch is taken care of.

No.

After picking up all those containers and the lids (I never did find the lid I was looking for), she took the Chef-Boy-R-Dee away from me and said it wasn't healthy enough. It's my own fault for telling her what my doctor said about my cholesterol. Anyway, she got this nasty gleam in her eye and said that she'd make my lunch.

She sure did. If you consider lettuce, carrots, cottage cheese and yogurt lunch.

I don't.

So, I wanted to stop at Lou's Deli for a sub, but I couldn't, because Lucille's sister's brother-in-law's kid works there, and it'd get back to Lucille right away. So I ended up stopping at the grocery store. I bought a big sub bun and a stick of meat. Who needs that condiment crap, anyway?

So, I'm set. Everything was going great until I see Anna, of all people, pull up. Who's Anna? My mother in law. Yeah, that's right. Harry the Hammer's wife. She and Lucille are tight, and I'm sure she already knew all about the "special" lunch Lucille packed me.

I looked down at my hands. Sub bun in one hand, stick of meat in the other. Shit. The bun I could explain. Buns don't have cholesterol. I think. Didn't matter. I had to get rid of the meat.

Did I mention that Anna has the nose of a blood hound? Harry had to force his bodyguards to stop smoking because she claimed that _he_ was still smoking. I bet she could smell meat a mile away.

I knew I didn't have long. Anna always stops in at that bookstore run by the mud wrestler (did I mention I have the best location _ever_?), but she doesn't stay long. I knew she'd be knocking on my door in minutes, doing her duty by saying hello. And reporting back to Lucille.

Over my dead salami.

I bolted into the outer office, where Sally was filing her little heart out. Coming up close behind her, I tried to press the salami into her hand, but I think she got the wrong idea. So maybe it wasn't a good idea to hold it at waist level. Or to trap her against the filing cabinet. And maybe I shouldn't have been saying, "C'mon, please! You gotta do this for me. Please! It won't hurt. It's not that big! Just take it and put it—"

Hindsight and all that shit.

But you can see, it really wasn't my fault! It was just a misunderstanding! Just like the other two. Really!

See, Sally's not the only one who totally got the wrong idea. Dana walked in on something that I guess _looked_ bad, but only if you don't know what _really_ happened. Which I guess she didn't...

It started with two of my addictions. And no, it's not what you're thinking. I swear! See, there's this little coffee place that Harry, um, patronizes. And it's in my best interest to, uh, patronize, it too. But the thing is, they make good drinks. Seriously good drinks. My favourite is the caramel mocha coffee. Seriously. You have no idea how good it is. But my mouth always feels like a jungle afterwards. So I tend to follow it up with an iced coffee. Yeah, it's a lot of caffeine, but hey, it's one of my lesser vices.

Anyway, I was sitting at my desk with the caramel mocha doing some background searches on the computer. Bet you didn't think I even knew how to use a computer, did you? See, computers aren't just for porn anymore. Who knew? Anyway, I was doing some research so that I wouldn't bond out somebody that my lame ass bounty hunter couldn't pick up. And by lame ass bounty hunter I'm referring to my imbecile cousin, not Ranger. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk, _working_, when I reached for the coffee.

I swear the thing moved. And, after I bumped into it, it moved even more. Right into my lap. Yeah. And apparently skin-tight polyester pants only trap the liquid and meld it to your skin. Now, I'll admit right off the bat that I'm not a silent sufferer, but I bet that you would have screamed, too, if you dumped scalding hot coffee on your jewels. Or girly parts. Whatever. And maybe I sounded like a little girl. Hey, I'm telling you, the coffee was hot! Anyway, a few things happened at the same time.

_One_. Dana came running in.

_Two_. I dumped the iced coffee on my lap to try to stop the burning.

_The good news?_ The iced coffee was surprisingly effective.

_The bad news?_ Did I mention that I'm not a silent sufferer? Well, I'm also pretty vocal when I'm happy. So, when Dana walked in I may or may not have sort have been rubbing the iced coffee into my, um, jewel area. And I may or may not have been saying things like, "Oh, yeah, baby. That's better." And, "Just a little more." Not to mention, "Damn, that's hot!" And probably the fact that I was playing a Barry White album on my computer didn't help, either. Hey! The man is seriously motivational!

Anyway, Dana walks in, my hand is busy in my lap, I'm moaning, and Barry White is doing what he does best.

Connie tells me Dana didn't quit running for five blocks. But it wasn't my fault!

And then there was Kristen.

I'm still shaking my head on this one. I mean, what are the odds, really? Probably something I should ask my bookie someday...

So, rumours about me and my feelings about ducks have been going around for years. Now, I'm not going to get into that, other than to say that Kristen grew up in the Burg, and therefore grew up with the rumours. She was predisposed, I tell you! I should have denied her employment based on that alone, but she was willing to work for minimum wage plus a dollar, and she knows how to fill out a sweater. So sue me!

Well, I've run across some pretty strange people in my line of work. And at my wife's family gatherings, but that's another story. Kristen had only been working at the office for a week when I got the call about the petting zoo owner being arrested for failing to provide adequate handicapped parking places. God's truth.

Now, that's just not right. A fine I could understand. But jail time? Plus, I happened to know that Pete was a decent guy. Maybe not completely in tune with minority rights, but a decent guy all the same.

So I bonded him out. And learned that maybe he wasn't quite as nice of a guy as I had thought. You know what that crazy bastard did? He stole the key to every public handicapped washroom and, you're not going to believe this, fed them to the animals in his petting zoo.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch, I'll tell you that he only fed them to the animals he knew could, um, process them. Like the goat. And the horse. And it's not as if he was going to keep the keys forever! He just wanted to make life difficult for people for a while. But then it all went ape shit when the mule wanted in on the action. He knocked over the sack of keys, and before Pete could blink, the ducks were digesting something other than eggs to pass.

Pete, not being a man possessed of strategic planning skills, panicked. He realized that pulling this crap while he was out on bail was probably a bad idea, especially if they added charges of endangering his own animals. So who does he call? That's right. Me. And what does he do? He brings the ducks to me so that the animal rights people can't get their hands on them. What did he think _I_ was supposed to do with them?

Well, I know what I ended up doing with them. Watching fifteen ducks while they destroyed my office. Do you know how much one bird can poop? Well, I didn't. I do now, and I'm telling you, you'd be surprised.

Anyway, long story short. I didn't want it getting out that I was helping Pete. For obvious reasons. First, it wouldn't help my reputation to be known as the bond agent who'll clean up your mess, and second... Hello? Ducks, anyone? Not an image I wanted to cultivate. So I locked my office door and told everyone to stay out. Like that's really a problem. For some reason, most people seem to avoid my office.

Well, the new girl, Kristen, she didn't get the message. Connie was out, and there were papers to sign. So _she_ says. I'm still going with the theory that she wanted to get me alone. Kristen says she knocked, but I never heard a thing. Ducks can be surprisingly vocal, especially when they're in a new environment. And trying to, uh, relieve themselves of foreign objects. So yeah. I was up to my knees in ducks when one of them starts squawking like crazy. Well, I thought, this is it. Show time. It's about time one of the keys "appeared".

Seeing as how I had no desire to inspect more duck poop than necessary, I decided I'd better keep my hands on the duck that was getting ready to produce the evidence. So I grabbed the duck and held it while it did its business. Don't look at me like that! I held it over the garbage can, okay? I'm not a complete slob.

Anyway, the duck didn't much like being held while it tried to conduct business, but I was determined. I had $20,000 riding on keeping good ole Pete on the straight and narrow! So I'm holding the duck. And you know how you're supposed to talk to plants to help them grow? I thought, hey, I bet it could work for animals, too, right? So there I was, encouraging little Donald or Daisy to do his or her business.

I swear she didn't knock. She says she did, but... When she heard all the squawking she got worried and fished out the emergency key Connie left for her. She walks in, and there I am, clutching a duck. And saying things like, "Keep going—you'll feel better in a minute." And, "Just one more push."

I did mention that Kristen grew up hearing stories about me and ducks, right?

So, yeah. I guess I can understand her leaving without giving notice. But it wasn't what it looked like!

Honest!


End file.
